So back at Christmas 2007, I snagged a copy of my studio's Naruto game - Naruto: Rise of a Ninja (not our more recent sequel Naruto: The Broken Bond, which by all accounts is even better). I finally got around to playing it a bit, and honestly, I'm really enjoying it.
Consider first that, as I have said many times in the past, I am actually really bad at videogames. Due to this, fighters are my bane. I honestly do not believe that I have ever in my entire life won a single match in Street Fighter (sorry Sirlin). Fighters are just too demanding of twitch reflexes and an understanding of how to enter combos, and read an opponent's moves. I am literally unable to decypher the language of a fighter.
Consider also that I know nothing at all about Japanese Anime. I don't know Naruto from (some other famous anime character that I can't even name to complete the phrase).
So with those major strikes against the game right out of the gate, I'm happy to report that it's a really tight, well realized experience. I strongly suspect that if you are interested in Naruto, you'll really like this game a lot. As for whether or not you'll like it more or less than I do if you like fighting games, I can't answer that at all because I have no idea if it is a good fighting game or a bad one.
The most impressive thing about it is the design of the city itself. Anyone designing an open world should take a good look at this game to see how it is structured. It is possibly the most smartly designed open world city I have ever seen in a game.
Here's the Cole's Notes of why it's great:
First - it's not too big just for the sake of being big. Full stop.
Second, it has a credible population of ordinary townsfolk who go about their business believably. All of the townsfolk dislike you at the start, but one of your rewards as you progress is the admiration of the people. As you do missions and side quests and help people, you get them to switch from disliking you to liking you one villager at a time. Unfriendly villagers say mean things as you pass by, but if you interact with a friendly villager, he will give you directions to your current objective in the form of a little arrow on screen for a short while. What this means is that as you unlock more and more friendly villagers, you have this low-level assistance available to you more and more frequently. It's a really subtle and clever way to make it feel like you're winning the hearts and minds of the villagers.
Third - from a level design point of view, the village is really well thought out and put together. The village has four vertical layers to it. As you progress through the game and unlock new powers and abilities, you are afforded access to higher and higher levels of the city - each higher level connected more 'broadly' then the previous.
At the beginning of the game, you cannot even double jump, and you can only access the lowest level - the streets and the rooftops of a few single story buildings. But you quickly learn the major routes and the major landmarks and get a pretty solid understanding of the basic layout.
Soon you are able to double jump and to run vertically up walls a short distance. This gives you access to the rooftops of most of the buildings in the village and is a very liberating step up. You also gain access to the first set of roof-connecting cables that allow you to 'slide' between interconnected rooftops.
Eventually, you upgrade your wall-running ability and can access the third and fourth vertical layers. The lowest level of cabling is the densest, connecting the most buildings with the shortest cables. The second level of cabling is sparser, connecting fewer buildings, but with longer cables. The highest level of cabling is the most sparse, connecting only a very few of the villages tallest structures.
Effectively these layered fast-travel networks allow you to 'climb up levels of movement heirarchy' giving you fewer degrees of freedom in your movement as you ascend, but giving you the ability to move much further and much faster the higher you go. It's really a fascinating topology.
The game has a really well thought-out economy and progression system as well. There are four currencies in the game: cash, coins, antique coins, and stars. Cash is the only unlimited resource and it is the resource you use to buy consumables (throwing knives, noodles, etc). Coins are (mostly) used to upgrade what you can carry - more knives, more noodles, etc). Antique coins upgrade the effects of your consumables (making all future knives purchased with cash into hardened knives or explosive knives or both). The stars are 'experience points' used to unlock and upgrade your personal abilities - combos and jutsus. Stars are doled out by missions. Both kinds of coins are collectibles (with the antique coins about 1/10th as common) and cash is given for just about everything.
The benefits of this system are obvious - it gives the designers the ability to maintain both limited economies (there are only so many abilties to unlock, hence a finite number of stars), and an open economy (once you have unlocked everything, you can still keep earning cash to buy more noodles to keep your health high - something which I desperately need). And further, by breaking the coins down into two separate limited economies, they alleviate decision stress on the player... not sure whether to save up 23 more coins to pay for that upgrade? You don't have to worry about it - the coin-based economy prices items in the 10's of coins and the antique coin economy prices things in the single units of antique coins (instead of in the 100s of standard coins). Very smart (unless of course, you are going for a more hardcore, more player-choice driven, and more consequential economy).
Anyway - I think the Naruto economy is fascinating and it taught me a lot about different concepts for game economies and I think it's worth a look.
There are also a few things I don't like.
First - I really don't understand the side-mission structure, as simple as it is. In the very beginning of the game, I am told that 'noddle delivery side missions' are unlocked. So I go do some. They are fun, easy, and help you learn the city. Then shortly thereafter, they tell you that races are unlocked, and also that hide-and-seek games are unlocked.
However - when you go to try and do a race or a hide-and-seek game, you cannot. The mission-givers tell you you need to train more - but I spent at least 4 hours (!) playing the game, doing missions, training and buying and unlocked new things before I was actually able to DO one of these supposedly 'unlocked' side-missions. Then - arbitrarily - the missions lock again after a few and you are told 'you need to train first'... but of course, I had no idea what I needed to train in or how, and went another couple of hours before being able to do these missions again.
I understand the notion of wanting to tease the player forward -but you need to tease the player forward with an IMMINENT reward, not one that they may unlock sometime this week. Additionally, by unlocking and relocking the side-missions, you end up playing two different games in parallel - you play a game where there are bunches of side missions and collecting to do - then you finish it all, and play a game of doing main missions until the side-missions are arbitrarily re-unlocked, then you switch back. It's weird. I would much prefer to just do side missions as they suit my whim.
Also - and this is probably the shelf moment for me - I am about halfway through the main story missions and a strange icon appeared on my health/chakra HUD following a major battle with a boss. This icon capped my health and chakra at 500 each, when formerly they were both around 1000. There is no explanation anywhere of what happened to cause it, or how I get rid of it (or even if I can)... I don't even know what it is or what it means - but it has stripped away fully 1/3rd of my power... and I am certainly not a good enough player to make due.
In both cases - the inexplicable locking and unlocking of side-quests and the bizarre 'capping' of my two main combat stats - are simply not explained, leaving me frustrated. Not only is it not explained to me what I need to do to continue forward and/or solve the problem, or when or if I might expect plot progression to solve the problem automatically, it is not even explained to me what the problem is - these impediments are just arbitrary.
Anyway - I still enjoyed the first half of the game quite a bit, and for the city structure alone, I once again recommend it to anyone interested in a rock-solid level design for an open world.
If the two problems mentioned above have been ironed out in the sequel, I'll definitely be picking it up.
I wrote about Naruto as well: http://projectperko.blogspot.com/2009/01/leaf-ninja-village.html
Unfortunately, the game continues to get more and more irritating, including an unbelievably bad quick time final boss sequence. While the game's good points are very good, the bad points are very bad.
Worth playing just to see what's good and bad. It's very educational.
Posted by: Craig | May 19, 2009 at 07:03 AM
You know, I believe I've been waiting a year to read something about this game (or Broken Bond) that wasn't by a traditional game reviewer. I really just couldn't understand why the games received such universal praise--figuring that probably a lot of people who review games were faithful series-anime watchers. But your description of the level design definitely got through to me. The lack of the double jump at the beginning and the future potential for vertical explorations instantly reminded me of Metroid Prime.
Was the mix of limited and unlimited economies really that novel, though? To me it sounds simply like regular ol' adventure game fare once removed--i.e., instead of the boss dropping a giant heart icon, it drops a star icon that I can use to upgrade my "heart" later. Poe spirits and Biggoron swords become antique coins. Does transforming these into a transportable and savable form really make that much of a difference? I really need to check it out and see--because even if it is much different than a Zelda heart, it still sounds pretty similar to a BG&E pearl to me.
Thanks for the warning on when the game becomes to eat itself apart with poor UI and transparency issues, finally decided it's definitely a rental!
Posted by: Simon Ferrari | May 19, 2009 at 10:34 AM
Simon:
No, I guess the the economy is not innovative, but it did seem surprisingly well thought out and executed. It was also refreshing for me, coming from working on a game that had such a hardcore (and player-choice focused) economy.
Glad I could help you decide to give your money to a rental company and make sure the developers don't see a dime :) Instead, why not just pirate a copy, and after you've pirated 3-4 games you feel are 'rentals', then buy the next one you think is a rental at full price - ensuring a reasonable equity and allowing the developers to get their 'fair share' in the end, and you get to actually keep one game out of 5 instead of burning your money away completely.
Posted by: Clint | May 19, 2009 at 11:44 AM
Kudos on the economy segue! However, I don't know whether to take it as a personal attack or a general venting of frustration. I'm a graduate student. I study videogames. I play them constantly. I buy the ones that I can afford and that I know I'll write about later. I rent the ones that I can't afford and probably won't write about. I don't buy from GameStop. I buy copious amounts of DLC to see more money go to developers. Am I a bad guy? Does a developer deserve my money if they make a game with horrible UI issues that will probably cause you to shelve it? Do rental companies truly contribute nothing to the success of the games industry as a whole?
You don't have to answer all (or any) of these, but I would like to know if the comment was ad hominem and if you really think it was deserved because of one aside I made about renting a game. Should somebody who rides a bicycle to school for lack of money really buy every video game they want to play?
Posted by: Simon Ferrari | May 19, 2009 at 04:00 PM
Ah, I see my mistake--I hadn't read that Ubi were the developers. I can see how you would take offense at that, and so I apologize. I do think my questions directly above stand, though. I don't mean it in an argumentative way, but really I'd like to know what you think somebody with limited funds should do.
Posted by: Simon Ferrari | May 19, 2009 at 04:06 PM
Ooops - Simon... no was offense intended, and no apology necessary. I was just being bitter and snarky and forgetting that does not translate well to internet comments. Sorry.
But re: your last question about limited funds and legitimate need for access for scholarship.
Ideally - you should petition your school to start buying games for their library - the same way lit students have library access to literature and film students have library access to film.
Since that will fail because Universities are in business for profit now, forget 'ideally'. How about 'an ethically balanced compromise'?
I think the original propostion is sound. You should pirate (or borrow) 'renters' until you have pirated enough games that the total value - if you had rented them - is equal to one game - then either buy a new game with that money or, better yet, buy the game out of the set of games you played that you feel is most valuable to you - thus ensuring not only that 'developers' get their cut, but that the specific ones you personally value get both their cut, and the 'vote' of your dollars.
Since 'ethically balanced compromise' is elaborate and time consuming and at least partially illegal (regardless of whether or not it is just), mostly I think you should just do what you think is best, and you know that way better than I do.
Posted by: Clint | May 19, 2009 at 05:25 PM
Thanks for the reply Clint! I understand that you're also going through some painful physical rehab (which I was very sorry to hear about--I went to GDX primarily to hear you speak and then found out only way later that you'd been injured) and that these things make us irritable, so I was glad to hear that the problem was the weakness of Internets text and not that I'd made you angry! I myself am on a particularly rough stage of quitting cigarettes, so I was probably "reading snarkily" into your comment to look for personal offense :)
The economic situation in our game lab is pretty dire, as you guessed. We have a decent relationship with EA, which sends us games (that they clearly have a surplus of). But as for purchasing games, it's not just a lack of money but a ridiculous bureaucratic issue. It took us two months to get World of Goo installed on our Wii! So basically the growth of our game library relies on the charitable donations of our professors who've purchased games and don't mind us using them. And, to be honest, I don't think a single one of them even knows what Naruto is :P I was planning on getting Broken Bond when it hit my $30 dollar sweet spot (which I'll address in the next paragraph).
You really have gotten me thinking, though. I studied film as an undergrad, and, although I bought as many DVDs as I could, I rented most of what I saw. I really do despise GameStop, but I'd never really considered that renting might be just as bad. I guess that, because I don't really like pirating anything, I saw renting as this middle-road economical option that wasn't as bad as buying used (without thinking about the fact that it was based on the same economy of developer exploitation). Right now I own about 20 games that I haven't gotten around to playing yet, because I bargain hunt. But now I don't even know if bargain hunting is quite right--I can't vote with my dollar right now, so to speak, but when I start earning more disposable income I really should be more conscious about making sure money gets where I want it to go. Do you recommend buying directly from a publisher's website to maximize what gets to the developer?
Posted by: Simon Ferrari | May 19, 2009 at 05:43 PM
Simon:
The difference with film rentals and game rentals is (as I understand it - perhaps another reader who knows can clarify?) - when a videostore buys a DVD they pay a special fee to the distributor for a license to rent the film... I'm guessing they pay a few hundred dollars per DVD- which they then rent dozens of times to make their money back.
With games - this agreement with distributors does not exist. A game renter just buys a copy of the game like you or I would, and rents it. The distributor sees no difference in income between 1 copy sold to a renter (who then makes hundreds of dollars renting it) and 1 copy sold to an end-user.
Anyway - I'm in over my head debating the business model - and can't make any practical recommendations about what is most fiscally 'fair' to distributors, publishers, development houses or individual developers.
I will say the whole thing is kind of annoying though because for all the innovation that goes on in the trenches of this industry, it pisses me off that we can't seem to build talent-developer-publisher-distributor-retailer relations based even on PROVEN WORKING models... nevermind the innovative, forward-thinking sorts of models that will be needed to sustain us through the next 20 years. In face of that degree of incompetance, I have to wonder whether piracy in fact is the true, just, solution for the time being.
(Of course, posting those thoughts will either get me investigated or HAXXORED, so I should probably STFU)
Posted by: Clint | May 19, 2009 at 06:16 PM
I'm definitely going to research the specifics of it now, but if what you say about game rentals holds up: consider me just as angry and annoyed as you are. That makes no sense. I wonder if somebody has written a history of how the situation came about. I assume it started with NES games, because those are the earliest I can remember available at VHS rental places. I'm assuming it was Nintendo, because I really can't imagine Nolan Bushnell going in on a shit deal like that, but maybe whoever established the precedent did it in the early days to try to woo rental places simply into acknowledging the existence of the industry?
As for the working labor models, I won't post my thoughts publicly either for fear of the same investigation/haxxoring. LB Jeffries, Ian B, and I talked about it for a hot minute once but I really don't understand enough about what's going on to pass judgment. I will say that things are similarly broken for the average Joe in the film industry, but that labor organization both helps/hinders things in different ways... and stuff like the Sundance festival and Miramax help a lot for mainstream-ish innovators. Videogames need a Harvey Weinstein and a Robert Redford, perhaps.
Thanks again for the review and all this other discussion! Hope the therapy goes well!
Posted by: Simon Ferrari | May 19, 2009 at 07:58 PM
I played Naruto back when it first came out. The vertical layers in the Leaf village were great. You think you've seen everything in the village and everytime you go up another layer there's a whole new environment to explore that was there the whole time. Realizing the cables could be used to grind across was incredibly exciting too. I thought they were just staying true to the source material and there to look pretty.
The things I did not enjoy:
Traversing the same mesh (outside the city) over and over again. The total lack of enemy variety. It's always the same 3 ninjas attacking you. Maybe a texture swap if you're lucky. Special jutsus I found incredibly difficult and frustrating to pull off.
I think the energy cap thing is from a plot point that probably is not very clear for non-fans. One of the villians (dude with the snake tongue) "seals" you powers off at some point. At some point, you should be able to break the seal and gain your powers back. Did you maybe skip that cut-scene? I'm not sure how clear that is even
is with the cut-scene.
I'm curious to see how Naruto: Ultimate Storm turned out on the PS3. Visually, it looks unbelievable.
Posted by: Nat | May 22, 2009 at 04:49 PM
It is true that Netflix, at least, kicks back revenues to DVD makers.
For brick&mortar, originally Blockbuster just paid higher prices for their "to rent" copies of vitodetapes, but there were brouhahas over that and I don't know how it ended up these days.
Posted by: Sean Barrett | May 25, 2009 at 08:56 PM
Also, I know in 1992 in Texas game rentals were (or were thought to be) illegal somehow. I know this because I remember there was a store in town that would "sell" you a copy of a game (used, unless you happen to be first in line for a new copy) and would let you "return" it for a small restocking fee as long as you returned it in a couple days or a week or whatever. In other words, it was algorithmically identical to renting, but with a skin of purchasing pasted on top.
Posted by: Sean Barrett | May 25, 2009 at 08:59 PM